How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

[truepenny]

Imposter Syndrome, for those of you fortunate enough never to have encountered it, is the pervasive and ineradicable feeling of being a fake, a poseur, of having gotten as far as you have in your chosen profession through a mixture of unwarranted good luck, brass-faced nerve, and the mysterious across-the-board lapse in critical accumen of those in authority (in my case, editors, agents, publishers, and readers, but you can fill in the blank there as it suits you).

I hate it.

I hate it when it afflicts my friends, and I hate it even more--being in some respects as self-centered as a cat--when it afflicts me.

Today, it is afflicting me in spades.

It's the page-proofs that are doing it, and I know that. There's something about seeing a story, of any length, set up with a real typeface and margins and page numbers and everything, that is completely alienating. On the one hand, it's very cool, but on the other hand, it makes the air raid sirens go off at top volume: Jesus Louise you don't mean to tell me you thought this was fit to print!! Were you on CRACK??!!! And all the little insecurities and anxieties and inferiorities, instead of heading to their designated shelters, go rushing about screaming at the top of their fool lungs, waving their hands and mobbing each other in a panic.

And the racket makes it very hard to get any work done.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I know Imposter Syndrome well. Still working on finding means of coping with it other than "Well, perfection's not humanly possible, but if I can just do this an order of magnitude better than anyone else in the world it will be OK and I can relax..." [ Pretty well achieved that in my last job fwiw. It's easy to be outstanding in a field if you define the field narrowly enough, and not helpful to take means of judging that into something less narrow. ]

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Heeeeeee, yes. Oh, yes. "I don't have to be perfect! Just...better."

Augh. Story of my life.

(I'd loan you my nerve, what nerve I have, Sarah, but I have to read the Orpheus out-frickin'-loud to the workshop from hell tonight and honestly, I got none to spare.)

Imposter Syndrome

[shadguy.livejournal.com]

im·pos·ter syn·drome ( P ) Pronunciation Key (m-pstr sndrm)
n.

1. Professional self doubt [Ref: truepenny's live journal].
2. Personnal self-doubt [Ref: shadguy on any given date].

Hang in there. Don't panic. Everything's fine. :)

-d.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Yep, you are such an imposter that I've already pre-ordered THE VIRTU and my friend ericaceous got so lost in MELUSINE that she almost came back late from lunch.

Clearly, you only pretended to write those books.

[sigh] If only knowing these things made Imposter Syndrome go away.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

You know, it does help at least a little. For me, anyway.

[lake-effected.livejournal.com]

i've been lurking on your journal after enjoying Melusine very much, but this comment brought me out of the woodwork. I'm convinced that imposter syndrome is one the most hideous emotional experiences that exists, especially since--by its very nature--all attempts to disprove it rationally are doomed to failure. In fact, for me they actually fuel the feedback loop--the more people try to convince me I'm wrong to feel the way I do by pointing to accomplishments, the more the panic grows that I'm about to be exposed not just as a fraud but a really, really BIG fraud.

It make me want to take a nap.

Anyway, that's a long way of saying I appreciate that you shared it, as it's always somehow reaffirming to know other people experience it too.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Heeeeello. Yep, yep, yep. I went through grad school *convinced* that any minute now, somebody would walk into the room, point dramatically at me, and go, "You! Out of the university, Fakey Fakerton!" And the more people who tried to reassure me, the more scared I got!

The fact that lo these many years later, I have yet to turn in my thesis doesn't help. Having Imposter Syndrome plus a terminal lack of focus sucks.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

If you're an imposter I'll eat my fucking hat.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I don't have imposter syndrome. That niche is occupied by Lesnerizing Syndrome (title from a Robert Sheckley story): the fear that I will get caught violating the Rule Everyone Knows But Me, which is never stated explicitly because anyone with common sense would know it.

[pameladean]

The second or third thought I had when our family financial circumstances took a sharp upward turn was "Now I can buy Melusine!"

That said, I just went through the precise experience you describe when going over the galleys for a short story that's being published in April of next year. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?"

I tell all the little shriekers that if they want to insult my editor, they should do it so far away from me that I can't witness the resulting nuclear explosion. Sometimes that helps. If one has a non-explosive editor, maybe not so much.

P.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

I combat Imposter Syndrome by realizing that everyone has it; that is, everyone is an imposter.

Otherwise known as "duck syndrome." They all look so cool and as if it is effortless, but underneath, they're paddling their little hearts out. So if I'm paddling really hard, and not entirely sure if I'm going to get through this patch of rapids, it's an indication that I'm paying attention.

You can tell the folks who have stopped paddling. Their work starts to suck, or at least be mediocre. They're the real imposters, trying to make like ducks when they're only decoys.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Oh, a P.S.:

As a person who has seen hundreds of different CE'd manuscripts in her career, the true measure of if you are faking or not is how much colored pencil covers your ms. I've seen books where the CE ought to get a co-writing credit.

That, more than anything else, is what got me started thinking that I might try submitting stuff. I have seen firsthand what crap gets published. I have seen what it looks like before and after, in draft, in final, in CE'd, in typeset-with-revisions.

You know what's the funniest thing? The crappiest of newbie writers are the least afflicted by Impostor Syndrome. IS means you're thinking about your work, wanting it to be as good as it can be. I'd be more worried about you if you didn't have IS.

[andartha.livejournal.com]

*petspetspets*

I know. I get it too sometimes.

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

I love your metaphor ;-)

All the people I know with imposter syndrome are the smartest people; the ones who really can't hack it don't worry and the ones who know what good looks like it strive so hard to reach it they don't see their own great.

I'm fine right until someone asks for a re-write and then I go straight to 'they busted me! do I have to leave now?'

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

Melusine is currently on loan to my con-chair (also my co-worker; convenient, that). I was still all, "Look what came from Amazon! I knew her! And that's her picture and it's a real book and isn't it spiffy?!?" And she came back with, "Can I borrow it? Does she do conventions? We try to encourage up-and-coming writers...".

So you're officially up-and-coming. Not an imposter. So there.

(The fact that you've likely not heard from her is not renewed evidence of your imposter-hood. It's evidence that we're understaffed here and running as fast as we can just to stay still, and pleasure-reading, even when it's cross-listed as work-reading for convention values of work, is sliding down the to-do list for all of us. And the convention isn't until June.)